"Don't Mess With Texas"

I will admit, I had to google where this phrase came from. My thoughts were that Texans got picked on by the other states, kind of like the smaller kids did in junior high (I was a smaller kid, I know! Junior High was brutal!). However, it appears the phrase actually comes from a "no littering" campaign. (just a bit of random fun facts for you! Thank me later when you're on "who wants to be a millionaire").
Here are a few pictures to document our first day in Texas.

Our first peek into downtown Houston:

Texans are all about some Texas pride!

(us South Carolinians can't say much, 9 out of 10 cars sport the palmetto tree sticker)

These flags hung on every other light post in downtown Houston:

Here we are! On our way to lunch we stopped to take a quick picture. As we were pulling our cameras out a nice gentleman stopped and asked if we would like for him to take our picture (if we learned anything while in Texas, it's that no one is friendlier than a Texan!). We thanked him and posed for the camera. As we broke from our pose and were retrieving our camera he said "wait a minute! We're not done just yet!" He proceeded to remove his own camera from his jacket pocket. What? Jessie said "uhm, you don't want a picture of strangers do you?" and in fact that IS what he wanted. I'm not quite sure what facial expressions his camera captured, we had our arms around each others back and we were squeezing each other as if to say "really, is this stranger taking a picture of us with his own camera? who does that?"

but I guess one could ask, "who lets a stranger take a picture of them with his own camera?"

(ps. can you see the baby bump?....that's baby bambino! My future niece or nephew!)

Just some downtown Houston shots:

Our first stop was to eat lunch at Sambuca. It was scrumptious!

After lunch we headed to Sugarland. Isn't that a lovely name for a city? Sugarland. It just sounds happy and hyper. Not to mention I think it would make a lovely name for a country band.

Look what I spotted!!

We took a few hours to relax and refresh ourselves from the flight before heading out to meet my brother in law and some friends for dinner. We ate at a little British pub in midtown Houston. The friends we met were beautiful people, from England. I decided if I could have any accent I wanted I would choose to have an English accent, because..well...it was marvelous really, just marvelous. ( Please say that last line with an English accent....SEE...isn't it lovely?! ha.)

(Please ignore the slight oil slick on my forehead! Holy cow it was HOT in Texas!! Heat does nothing pleasant with my face **sigh**)

After dinner we went back to the house and relaxed. Jessie and I took an evening stroll around her neighborhood and then called it a night. We both needed our beauty sleep. We had plans to visit the alligator park the next morning.